


Fake AH Headcanons

by TheQueen



Series: Seven Sins Ain't Enough [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Fake AH Crew, Fem! Jack Pattillo, Gen, Trans Fem!Jack Pattillo, Various headcanons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-04-12 11:21:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4477400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheQueen/pseuds/TheQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A place to store some of my longer Fake AH Headcanons that are written in semi-story form.</p><p><strong>Chapters:</strong><br/>1. Origins of the Crew<br/>2. Maybe Michael is the Crazies One of All | Michael-Centric<br/>3. A God Fearing Man | Ray-Centric<br/>4. How the Crew Ends<br/>5. Ryan the Kidnapped Guy | Ryan-Centric<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Origins of the Crew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They make it work. They always do.

One:

Geoff is reborn. Burnt houses and wrecked streets and graves only three feet deep because his hands are shaking and his knees are shaking and there’s never enough time to mourn the way the past deserves before he’s moving, crawling then limping then running through crowded streets and back rooms and one too many lost cities. And in the end, he finds himself with a crown that calls for blood at the seat of parliament next to the High King and his Dogs. And when the High King gives him a city, the womb of an empire, Geoff grabs it by the throat and never lets go, until the streets scream for mercy and he gives them hope. And if the people call Burns the High King, then they call him the Righteous King and he’s ok with that. 

Two:

Jacqueline “Jack” comes to him on her own terms and steps into place as his right hand like the first puzzle piece slotting into place with a satisfying snap. The Advisor to the King, her word is law but her face is unknown. And they whisper her name in the under belly of the city with awe and with fear. Jack of all Trades and Master of Masks, she can be whatever he needs–advisor and executor and judge and jury, mirror and friend and conscious and confidant–as she hides in plain day light until she believes she can trust him enough to hear her laugh. But Geoff isn’t foolish enough to ask about her past and she will never know his. And, in the end, while they know each other the best, they don’t know each other at all. 

Three:

Gavin is a gift. By the High King decree, he fits easily within the crew, a valuable wheel in the well-oiled machine Geoff and Jack had spent two years building, piece by piece, to last. And from the start, Geoff took him under his wing because Gavin was a gift and a curse, and Geoff recognized behind the easy laughs and the practice at playing the fool there were wings at his feet and a tension in his shoulders like he was used to running at the drop of a hat and knew with a gentle hand that Gavin was going to go places and heights that Geoff knew he wasn’t brave enough to reac.h Because while he was King of the West with Los Santos as his capital, the High King was a kind face leaning over his shoulders and Geoff loved him for that. 

Four:

And if Jack is his Right Hand then Ryan is his Left, cold in a way Jack can’t and calculated in a way Gavin pretends he isn’t. And Geoff isn’t sure how he got him while everyone swears that the Righteous King has the Mad Mercenary on a leash. But Geoff knows better than to think he could tie the Vagabond down. So when Ryan disappears for weeks at a time maybe for fun maybe for work always for pleasure, Geoff doesn’t bother trying to track him down because Ryan always comes back when he needs him to play the Dog. And when those disappearing acts dwindle down from eight to six to two to one to zero times a year, Geoff doesn’t say anything and Ryan doesn’t say anything and Gavin knows better–for once–to say anything and Jack laughs like old church bells over the hush of a midnight mass.

Five:

Michael comes West looking for him. With a family name feared across the world and a lineage full of criminals that only history caught, Michael was born knowing that crime was his past, present, and future but as the third child of three sons, there would be nothing left for him to inherit when the time comes. So he strikes West like his forefathers in search of treasure and a name and only settles in Los Santos when he hears there’s a man who got the Vagabond to heel. It takes him two years to create Mogar, the explosive expert capable of taking out anyone who attempts to fuck him over. It takes another half a year for the Righteous King to offer him a job on a one off, robbing some bank and Michael takes it as a start and wonders if the King and his Dogs knew who he _really_ was. But in the end it’s Gavin who brings him in, who latches onto this strange curly-haired boy with a Jersey accent strong enough to still turn his u’s into ooh’s and a temper as explosives as the hand grenades he carries around in his pockets in a way Gavin had never cared for anyone before. And in return, Geoff welcomed him into the fold without caution and gains his Dog.

Six:

Ray comes home leaning against Michael with blood leaking down his left leg, the both of them drenched in water and gasoline (everyone is smart enough not to ask). And after that he never leaves. But from the start Geoff knows he’ll be the first to go. Probably from a bullet or an explosion or perhaps because he got bored, one day the boy who had made himself at home in the corners of their shared loft would leave. Because for all that he played quiet and controlled, there was a heat and a rebellion in his blood more similar to Michaels with all the recklessness Gavin was prone to. And if Gavin had wings at his feet then Ray had rocket launchers. But still Geoff knew a good asset when he saw one and, even better, a good friend, so he convinced the kid (because they’re all kids in his eyes, capable but over their heads and in need of a lot of guidance) to stick around for three years because Ray had all the precision in the world but he still liked to have a finger telling him his target. And when Ray tells him he’s leaving, Geoff already has a going away party all planned and Michael makes him swear to keep in touch and Gavin makes him promise to visit. And Geoff knows the day Gavin starts his own crew, he’ll call Ray home, but for now Six went back to Five.

Five:

They make it work. They always do.


	2. Maybe Michael was the Crazies One of All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryan is often perceived as the craziest of the crew what with his mask and his penchant for unneccessary murder but instead consider this.

Ryan is often perceived as the craziest of the crew what with his mask and his penchant for unneccessary murder but instead consider this.

Consider, instead, Michael. Michael whose been in the field the longest. Who didn’t fall into it or end up in it or stumble across it, but was born with it. Born with crime in his blood and his name and the knowledge from age four that the screams he heard at night weren’t always in his dreams. And sometimes cruel things are done by cruel people but that doesn’t make them bad unless they get caught because blood is blood and blood is money. And money…money is everything.

And so consider this. Michael Jones with blood on his teeth at age ten. On his hands at fourteen. His first kill at seventeen because someone was dumb enough to try for his brother on his watch. And blood is blood and blood is fucking beautiful. And when Michael slit his throat with ease and without regret but rather with pleasure, he knows there is nothing he’d rather do. Because there was nothing clean about this kill. There never would be. But it was kind. It was almost…soft.

And when the reward was cold green cash, Michael knows his future.

Because where Ryan finds joy in the precision, in the neat ability to take apart his victims without wasting a single stroke, a single drop of blood , Michael fell in love with the brutality and the rawness. Fell in love with the knowledge that he could make them sing or make them cry. Make them beg. Make them die.

Because where Ryan runs cold, Michael always burns hottest.

Ryan has rules, of conduct, of discipline. A scientist before he is a murderer. But Michael has no such boundries. Except one. No children. None. Never. That was his one rule. (But that wasn’t much was it? When ever crew member knew better than to touch a child with their twisted, blood-stained hands.) But everyone else…everyone else was free game. Innocents were casualties. Crooks, worthy victims. Enemies, dear playmates. There was an intimacy with Michael when he held their hand as he made them bleed out. A closeness when he listened to them discuss their dreams and their fears. But worse was the way he’d hold them close, make them fall in love with him, make them spill every little secret before he spilled every drop of their blood. In the end, some even thanked him, because Michael, if nothing else, was always a romantic.

Because consider this: the difference between the snake and the cat. A killer with a quick lung and posion sharp enough to kill in seconds. Or the killer who plays and prances. Who hides and lunges with no intention except for a quick flinch before it gets bored. Which would you prefer? 

Because who would consider Michael. Curly haired, baby faced Michael. With cherry lips and flushed cheeks. Red polka dot freckles against pale white skin and sparkling baby brown eyes. Over Ryan, tall and dark. Muscles and masks. Dark brown eyes and nails cut blunt out of necessity. 

Becuase who would consider Michael when they were too busy watching Ryan?


	3. A God Fearing Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ray lives in fear of the day he will die.

Ray lives with the knowledge that one day he’s going to rot in hell.

But it wasn’t always like this. Because in the beginning, he was good. He was. With a Mother and a Father and a Brother he would die for and a decent apartment in a decent suburb on the edge of a city that had yet to meet the Righteous King. He was good.

He was happy.

In the beginning, he was taught to believe. He didn’t go to Church every Sunday, but he once read the Bible cover to cover when he was ten and knew to say Grace before every meal. When he gets a certain chill, he crosses himself just as a precaution. When he was in third grade, he cheated on an exam and went to confession. In the beginning, he believed.

And when his family moves to America, he remembers to take his faith with him. And as he loses his language, he holds onto his faith until he is the one dragging his family to Church every Sunday. Because it’s the only thing that lets him breath when school and money and fear made him feel like he’s losing a battle he isn’t aware he’s fighting, falling further and further from someone he wants to be.

And he wants to be good.

But good doesn’t last very long in Los Santos.

When his mother dies, he cries. When his father dies, he rages. When his brother falls ill, he feels broken. He feels lost. Where is his God now? He thinks in the silence of a hospital room as the doctors speak of cancer and time left and emergency treatments. If love is meant to be born through pain, then does that mean he has not loved enough? Can he even love more?

When the doctor’s send him the bill… And it wasn’t always like this. Ray knows. Deep down, he knows there’s a soul in there worth saving. (But he also knows he’s not strong enough to save it. That maybe no one is.)

The gun sits heavy across his palm when he shoots and the guilt weighs him down like a cross he can’t afford to put down. Not yet. But when he’s paid enough to give his brother a treatment that might save his family, he can’t make himself regret it.

In the beginning, he takes small time jobs from small time crews. And he does good work, makes a small name for himself; Brownman is a mask he can use to play pretend as if he’s killing pixels in a video game instead of people on the streets. And as he gets known, he tries to be picky about who’s on the other end of the scope without risking pissing someone off. And it works until the rent is breathing down his neck and the treatment just isn’t working yet.

The day he kills a child, he knows he’s going to hell.

And in the end, it doesn’t even matter. Because nothing good ever lasts in Los Santos.

His brother dies. And all he has left is the gun. And when you’re already scrapping the bottom of the barrel, there aren’t a lot of ways out other than to dig deeper. And he tries to build a coffin of sex and drugs and blood as he loses himself in the underbelly of a city that is just as lost as he is. Trying to forget to mourn a life that he knows is over, has been over for so long (perhaps since the day they moved to this god-awful city), while trying to end this one.

He’s in some shitty East Garden takeout, munching on a bowl of lo mien when he realizes it’s too late now, isn’t it?  His rifle’s tucked away in a guitar case next to him and the knowledge of his last kill (only half an hour ago) still fresh on his mind as he re-rechecks if he’d managed to cover his tracks well enough. And now this is his life, isn’t it? Whether or not he ends it in that moment–grabs his pistol and eats the bullet–there’s no going back from this. And, he laughs, where is his God now?

He hides after that. Leaves his rifle behind and crawls into his apartment half past four in the morning and spends the days with a joint between his lips. Because he was taught to believe and he believed. And he knew where his God was and he knew were his life was taking him.

All that was left was time.

And when he can make himself walk outside of his apartment without braining himself on the way down the stairs, he goes out and buys a rifle the color of Malibu Barbie and fucks off to New York because the streets of Los Santos are littered with the scars of a war that Ray has lost.

It’s the first time he runs.

He doesn’t stop.

He jumps from city to city, job to job. Sometimes he makes it across seas only to come limping back, rifle a familiar weight against his back with another scar to add to the collection. And this is his life now. He spends his days on jobs, his nights on drugs. Makes the time in-between something worthwhile, something to write home about. Because he might as well live it up while he can.

(But if he’s honest with himself–and he rarely is–he’s still waiting to die.)

Sometimes it gets too much and he tries. Tries to be good (because he still wants to be good). But he might have left Los Santos, but he’s learnt by now that good things never last. And it never ever sticks. The gun is too familiar in his palm, the job too easy to do. The demons too big to fight. And he’s no David.

And he’s digging too deep and one day the ground is going to fall from under his feet.

He made a friend back in New York, in the beginning after the beginning, who makes a living out of fire and blood who calls him home for the first time in what feels like a century but is really less than a decade with a promise of something worthwhile. And Ray knows the fear of Los Santos the same way he knows the fear of his God, but he’s reaching a point where time just isn’t moving anymore. So he signs on and goes home just for one job, he tells himself. Just one.

(And Ray has always been very, very good at lying to himself.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Playlist inspired by this headcanon](http://8tracks.com/thequeen117/a-god-fearing-man)


	4. The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I couldn’t stop thinking about how the crew would end and this is what I think will happen:

I couldn’t stop thinking about how the crew would end and this is what I think will happen:

Maybe it starts with Ray. And you don’t think of it as a start to anything at the time. Because you always knew t[he boy who started this life running wasn’t going to stop](http://thequeen117.tumblr.com/post/126755175571/fake-ah-headcanon-ray). But the space he left hurt, which is okay. And you go years with that ache, never really filling it even when Burnie sends a replacement. Which is okay. Because you needed a sniper and Jeremy is a good man and a good friend and a good shot. And he makes a space in your heart and your home and your crew. But he doesn’t fill in Ray’s and, god, you don’t want him too. And it’s good.

And time passes and the crew grows. It grows and grows until it’s too big for just you. So you look at your boys and knows. Jack thanks you, smiles and declines. She’s never wanted to run a crew, she tells you. So you turn to Ryan and he’s scared. But really he’s excited. And you send him South with enough men to start his own hold just like Burns had sent you. And he promise to visit. Just like Ray.

(And it’s not like they don’t come home. Ray with Tina. Ryan with boys of his own—just like he’s still Geoff’s boy in the end, which makes Ryan so grateful. But it’s not the same after years of waking and breathing and living with them in one big house that’s starting to feel too big.)

And time keeps moving.

Gavin starts bouncing and you prepare yourself for something you always knew and wanted (but also dreaded) was coming. He waits two more heists to approach you and starts by thanking you. And this must be what its like to be a parent, you think. He’s still struggling; tripping over his words as he tries to tell you he’s ready. And you put him out of his misery and wish him luck. And he has tears in his eyes and you pretend you don’t as you pull him in for a hug and tell him you’re proud. You’re going to go far, you tell him, your crew is going to go bigger than big. And he laughs as tears fall. And, god, you love him. This strange boy you took in and made a son. And you’re so proud of him but you’ll miss him (even more than you miss all your boys).

Michael tells you he’ll stay if you ask. And you finish your drink before you answer him because of course you want him to stay. He was family. He was your boy. You love him. But instead you say this. Take care of him, you tell Michael. Keep each other safe. Because Michael&Gavin wasn’t a law even you’d try to break. And you’ll miss your lads, your boys now men. Ready to start on their own. You’ll miss them.

And time moves on.

You feel too old standing over Jack’s grave. It’s fresh. Everyone has left. Except your boys. It’s been a long time since they’d all been together outside the holidays (every single one they can afford: Christmas and Thanksgiving and Fourth of July and Birthdays. But it never feels enough even after you and Jack had moved when you couldn’t bear living in a house so empty.) Michael is still crying; his littlest girl holding him close as Lindsay stands solid, holding both of their weights. Gavin isn’t as dry eyed as he likes to pretend and your daughter-in-law, Meg, holds his hand. Their daughter couldn’t make it, but she’d sent you a letter (hand written and everything because she thought you were older than you were). Ryan is bare faced and puffy eyed. His civilian wife—and how they had teased him for it—crying into his shoulder. Ray leans against Tina, face bowed in respect, as she looks up at the sky. And their all so grown, you think. And time has finally caught up too you. And you can feel all 69 years of it in your bones. And you think about the way she’d just fallen asleep with a cough that didn’t’ go away and never woke up. And you think about all the things you’ve done, good and bad, with her at your side (this crew, these boys, this reality you’ve shaped out of nothing) as you look over Jack’s fresh grave. So you turn and look at your boys. And you think about time and age and change. You think about a grave so similar just a few inches away.

And you think its time to retire.


	5. Ryan the Kidnapped Guy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let’s get real here. Like really real. Gavin, for all that he’s a skinny clumsy fool, is just too far away from the action to get kidnapped. Safe behind his computer screens, acting like the crew’s God’s Eye, directing them here and there; there is just no safer job. But Ryan on the other hand…Ryan’s just an asshole.

The first time Ryan gets kidnapped it’s because he’s a fucking asshole (big surprise).

According to how Ryan tells it (because Michael hadn’t been there—too busy kicking ass and taking names during a heist going sour because some bullshit group of now-dead individuals tipped off the cops in hopes of knocking the Fake AH down a few pegs, safe to say it hadn’t worked) it’d been the best course of actions. Removing said bullshit group of assholes would have taken a negative element out of the field and “up the chances for the success of the heist exponentially.” Apparently, he had forgotten to take into account crew feelings like the fact that they did NOT like the fact that HE GOT KIDNAPPED! ARE YOU SHITTING ME? WHAT THE FUCK, RYAN?!

It takes too long to get to him. They find Ryan tied up in some underground hideout that not even Kerry had known about in one of the abandoned, unsafe subway tunnels with cracked ribs and to many cuts. And he has the shamelessness to reassure Geoff that he hadn’t let anything slip. Geoff had responded by crying—much to the shock of Ryan and the horror of everyone but Jack. And God bless Jack, Michael thinks, the only reason they had gotten out in the first place. Because hearing Geoff cry pulled Gavin’s attention away from the COMs long enough for one of the remaining, rage-filled kidnappers to get too close. Luckily, said asshole had tried to get the drop on Jack first and had promptly met the end of her shotgun. The noise was loud of enough to get everyone moving with Ryan leaning heavily on Geoff and Jack while Michael and Ray took point and Gavin chattered in their ears, eye’s sharp on the camera feeds he’d managed to get control of.

When they get home, Caleb and Steffie takeover while everyone winds down and Ryan finally gets to pass out after the bloodless without fearing…you know. Dying. When Ryan wakes up later, the doctors have cleared out and it’s night but it was night when he passed out so he doesn’t know what day it is. Geoff is holding his hand.

“Don’t do that again,” Geoff tells Ryan. And there are tear marks on his cheeks and dark, deep circles. And when Ryan bothers to look around the room, he sees every single member of the crew crammed into one corner or another, fast asleep.

“What…” Ryan clears his throat and accepts the water Geoff offers him with shaking hands (but if that’s from the exhaustion or something else, Ryan doesn’t know). When he’s done with the glass he tries again. “What is everyone doing here?”

Geoff scoffs. “They were worried about you, dumbass. Where else would they be?”

“I was fine,” Ryan sighs, trying to sit up and stopping with Geoff moves to help him. “I could handle it.”

“It’s not about whether or not you can handle it,” Geoff scolds him, “It’s that you don’t have to and we won’t let it.”

When he gets the clear from Caleb, Ryan is hoping things will get back to normal. Of course, Michael gleefully exclaims several days later when Ryan confides in him, that wouldn’t fucking happen, dumbass. Nope. Instead, they don’t stop touching him. A hand on his shoulder or his face or his back. Feet in his lap during movie night. Head’s on his shoulders during game night and Gavin hovering uncertainly in his door until Ryan makes room for him to sleep in his bed, only to wake up with all three lad’s curled around him. And maybe, Ryan can admit, it takes him an embarrassingly long time to stop fighting it and realize why they can’t let him out of their sight for too long and why Gavin and Jack are still running damage control because of all the favors they called in and all the resources they used up (which he’d tried to reprimand them for until Gavin, of all people, had smacked on the back of his head and told him to shut up) without complaining.

Ryan had known they’d cared. He’d cared too (why he’d turned himself over in the first place). But somehow, he forgot that they loved him enough to want him safe.

…

The second time Ryan gets kidnapped is because he’s insists he can take it.

The job means they need someone on the inside just for a few hours. Just enough to get a tracker inside the enemy crew to get to their home base. And that meant sending in one of their own as bait. And Michael is the first to offer himself up. He’s had training on how to withstand it: torture, solitary, fear. And he’d done it a few times before. The perks from coming from an old family in the business. When he brings it up, everyone starts arguing, insisting there must be a better way when they know there isn’t (as if Michael would offer himself up on a golden platter if there wasn’t). But Ryan makes there discussion for them, refuses to budge even when Michael reassures him that he can take it, promises him that he’s had the training and the experience. And when the crew sends Ryan out and he tells them goodbye over the COMs just as the rival gang enters the building, Michael punches the desk out of frustration.

The only saving grace, the only thing that makes this whole ordeal bearable, is that everything works. That maybe their first tracking device times out and their second gets ripped out but their third stays online long enough for them to see the home base, long enough to get to Ryan. And it goes down in only a couple of hours but they might as well have been the four longest hours of their entire lives.

They find Ryan in a classic backroom with double locks on the door that take Jack a few seconds to cut through but might as well have felt like hours with how impatient Geoff was to get through the door. What they find on the other side is Ryan, barely scuffed up but clearly shaken, a dead body still warm at his bound feet.

When they get home, Ryan doesn’t put up a fight or complain, doesn’t shy away from the fact that everyone needs to reassure themselves he’s alive with a touch to the arm or face, back or knee. Maybe he wants some reassurance too. That it worked. That he’s home. When Ray flops onto his bed the following night, Ryan isn’t surprised to find all three lads asleep in his bed. When Jack makes him pancakes in the morning and Caleb stops in to check on him, he has the sense just to say thank you.

It’s good, Ryan decides, to have a family that cares about you. Not selfish.

…

The third time Ryan gets kidnapped is because he’s a selfless asshole.

Ray and Ryan get cornered during a heist. What goes down next, Ray can’t tell without breaking down; Ryan isn’t conscious enough to tell. But what Michael can guess is that they got caught and Ryan gave himself up to get Ray out. How he did it... Michael would love to know.

It takes too long, far too long, to get to him this time. A month passes by and the room is tense, tempers flare, fists raise but when they fall they never strike skin. Kerry is running himself raw. Gavin hasn’t slept right since Ryan…left (and what a cop out way to say it, Michael scolds himself). Geoff is snapping at everyone. Work faster. Work harder, he says. Jack is running things while Geoff tries to hold it together, taking care of the small things. Money collections and turf threats that never lead anywhere. Ray falls silent. Does what he’s told. Sleeps when he’s told. Eats when he’s told. But he’s shut down. Won’t pick up a controller to pass the time, barely remember to answer the phone when he calls.

One night he comes to Michael’s room, tears still fresh in his eyes. And Michael doesn’t pause to consider “what?” before he opens his arms and let’s Ray into his bed. Curled up, all Ray can ask is “Why? Why? Why?”

“I’m not worth it,” Ray cries, tears turning Michael’s shoulder wet. “Why did he do it, Michael?”

The next day, Michael gives in, running out of hope as he leaves Ray sleeping in his bed. He reaches out to a family friend for the first time since he left and she does what’s asked for a price he’s dreading to pay: a favor. One single favor that he’ll never be able to turn down and Michael can only pray it doesn’t come back to kick his ass.

It takes her two more weeks. Michael hands the envelope to Geoff and makes him swear to never ask who. Jack forces him to agree. They plan for four hours and head out at dawn.

The hell fire they rain down on the crew that made the mistake of taking from The Fake AH Crew will live on in the history of the American underground, a reminder of why the High King gave the West to Geoff Ramsey. A reminder of how Geoff earned the moniker The Righteous King. In the end, there is nothing and no one left to bury. They find Ryan in a cell underground, lying on a mat, bleeding slowly from a few cuts, dead to the world but not dead. There isn’t a part of him that hasn’t been hit or sliced, a patchwork of black, blue, and red. Ray can’t handle it. Waits outside the cell while everyone pretends not to hear him vomit as Michael and Kerry cover the exit. It’s too dangerous to move him so they bring Caleb with him, patch him up as best they can before Jack drops in with their ride home.

No one goes home that night. No one sleeps. They stay curled up in the hospital room just like that first time, dozing in fits. Michael only wakes when he sees Ray get up. He catches Ray’s eye by the door and smiles. “Stay safe. Come home,” he whispers.

Ray nods.

The next morning when Geoff informs them Ray’s skipped town, leaving nothing but a note that says to call him when Ryan wakes up, Michael isn’t surprised. And when Jack follows after, Michael only wishes her luck. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr: QueenMogar117
> 
> Please tell me what you think.


End file.
